.

By: Ricardo Patiño

Social Media Marketing for music: the good and the bad

        When we talk about social media, the first names to get in our minds, probably are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. This are the most commonly known social media. Social media area platforms that help us interact with other people, share stuff, or meet people who we feel have something in common with us. Each social media site or platforms has his own public or it is target to a specific group of people probably doing something in common. For example if you think of Youtube, the first thing that will probably pop up in our minds are videos, viral videos, music videos or channels. We don't think of photos when we talk about Youtube. So each platforms targets a specific group, with specific needs

         For these platforms be useful to us we need to understand what we mention before. That will give us a better picture if we are using each one right. One of the most commonly mistakes I seen, is using Facebook for everything. Facebook is a good platforms but for our purpose we want to focus on musicians, artists or bands. There are other social media platforms that focus on musicians like Reverbnation and Bandcamp to name a few. This social media platforms have tools that musicians or bands can benefit from them. There are plenty of websites so check them around to see if they fit your needs. 

        All this platforms share a few things in common. For example most of them  have Fans, Likes or something similar, video plays or views, comments, etc. As an artist you want to get to your fans so probably you will use the promoting systems of each platform to boost fans, likes, etc. First thing you must have in your mind is "How you define yourself as an artist?", "What kind of music you play?", "Who my fans will probably be". This are simple question you must ask yourself to know in which direction your marketing will go. 

        Must of this "Promote" systems on each social media platforms use a system of tags to get to your audience. This tags can be different ways your artists name could be written, music you sound alike, another artist that may sound similar to you or even the group of people you may want to attract. Also you may have a section where you put the ages from "X" to "Y". Also you may have the option to choose the country you want to promote yourself. What this does is help the platform to find your specific target audience and show your material or add. Sometimes this could be frustrating so we choose to go the easy way. 

         There plenty of places which with a small amount of money you can buy Fans, likes, vies, etc. Here comes the Dark part of doing this. Doing this without a strategy plan could be like committing suicide. The reason is simple, first your Fans know what is good from what is bad. Second, I seen a lot of unbalance marketing done using this. For example  a band that have 200,000 Youtube views and less than 1,000 fans on Facebook and probably form 9 to 10 likes on each post. Probably you bought too many Youtube views to make your band look good both you forget to distribute everything so it looks real. Maybe 2,000 views and 1,000 Fans look more real. If you got too many Fans then how can you explain you haven't being sign up. The lets for a moment think you are independent or indie and you choose that as an answer, then how would you explain your EP or CD doesn't sells. So if there is no balance between your social marketing strategies without a goal they maybe worst from you that really helping you. You need to back up your strategy so it make sense and can help you with drawing attention from other fans. Also pay attention to comments, 1 million views, 180 likes and 10 comments something smell wrong. Be careful with this strategies. Even worst I seen artist that started to believe this numbers where real, creating false expectation of themselves.  You must be aware at anytime of what you are doing and how this impact you as an artist. Remember real fans will follow you, your music and will probably by merchandise. So if you bought 10,000 fans be real will yourself, probably only less than a thousand shirts is all you need to start. Remember those numbers are not entirely real. Keep it real and hope you find it helpful. There are many ways of doing the things a told above, so study them , find the best that suits you and use them wisely.